After five weeks in court IBM has agreed to settle all ongoing legal disputes with Compuware. Big Blue is paying the maninframe management software vendor $140m for software licenses and $260m for services over the next four years.

The two companies agreed to end all outstanding litigation and to share interoperability information. They also signed a reciprocal patent license agreement covering both companies' technology.

Compuware had accused IBM of using information from ex-Compuware employees in breach of their confidentiality agreements. IBM was also accused of using trade secrets to improve its own mainframe management software.

IBM was also accused of unfairly linking hardware and software sales to try and "kill" Compuware.